Blades Of Destiny (Crown Service Book 4)

by Terah Edun

  “Is there another?” squeaked Matteas from between his hands, covering as much of his head as he could.

  Ezekiel frowned and looked away before he spoke in the far-off tone that Sara had come to recognize as his “scholar voice.” The one that conveyed he was diving into the research library he stored in his brain and searching the archives for the answer as he spoke.

  Ezekiel said, “No, this is the only one, and damn it all to hell that you chose to store them at the Kade enclave.”

  His words were scorching with censure, and yet…Sara heard something else in his tone. Hope, maybe? Wonder, even. She almost groaned. That was the scholar in him. The scholar itching to get through the doors of the fabled institution and feast his eyes on the all the texts and scrolls the Madrassa had managed to gather within its vaults, in the decades since its foundation.

  That wasn’t why they were going.

  Feeling fed up with both of the men, Sara stepped forward with folded arms and said harshly, “Don’t tell me you admire his tactic.”

  Ezekiel glanced up at her before going back to staring into the air at nothing. “Admire? Maybe a bit. You have to admit, it was a brilliant move to store them there. The empress’s traitorous courtiers may have gotten to your father through whatever defenses he was able to muster, but they’d never get through the Kades.”

  “Let’s not forget that neither can we,” she shot back.

  Ezekiel shrugged. “Hence our current predicament.”

  “So,” Sara said as she kept a keen ear out for more thumps. Thumps that meant explosives were incoming. They couldn’t stay here forever, but she’d be damned if she’d run out onto another battlefield without a plan.

  “So?” Ezekiel said.

  She rolled her eyes at him. “So we need a way through the defenses.”

  Ezekiel nodded. “Unfortunately, I don’t see how an hour’s rumination is going to solve the problem that we’ve been trying to find a solution to for ages.”

  “No, not we,” Sara said softly as she tapped her fingers on the hilt of her sword.

  “What was that?” Ezekiel said, looking over at her.

  “I said not we,” Sara replied. “The empire has been trying to find out how to get into the Kade fortress for ages, but we haven’t.”

  Ezekiel frowned. “Not to be snippy here, but does it really make a difference? We’re still screwed if we think we can find out something that has eluded the finest minds this empire has seen yet.”

  Sara snorted. “That would be true, except for the fact that the finest minds aren’t at court, are they? They’re in the Madrassa.”

  “And so?” Matteas interrupted.

  “And who do we have that counts as among those minds?” she said.

  It didn’t take long for at least one of the men to get where she was going with this.

  Shaking his head, Ezekiel replied, “Not to demean your epiphany or anything, but I do think you mean had. The rumors strongly suggest that Nissa Sardonien escaped when the Kades attacked.”

  Sara deflated briefly, but she wasn’t through yet—she could still get to Nissa. As she thought about how, Matteas spoke up again.

  “Rumors? What rumors?” he said in a high voice that was rapidly getting on her nerves.

  Pinning him with a derisive look, Ezekiel explained, “The whispers going around camp before the attack. I spoke to a bath attendant personally who said we’re on high alert. But they wouldn’t say why.”

  “Maybe they were just being overzealous,” Matteas said with a dark look at the tent walls surrounding him. It looked like he wanted to leave the confines just as much as Sara wanted to stay inside. Too bad—he’d snuck into her tent and now he was along for the ride, come hell or high water.

  Ezekiel continued, unbothered by the interruption. “Not likely. In fact, it doesn’t take intelligence to figure out that the leadership of the Imperial Armed Forces were either expecting another attack soon or they had other problems up their sleeves. Put that together with the fact that all of Nissa’s prison guards were discovered dead but no Sun Mage was trotted out for a whipping in retribution, and you have a fact that’s hard to deny.”

  Ezekiel may have been speaking to Matteas, but his voice rose at the end in a direct challenge to Sara.

  She snorted. She wasn’t going to get in a fight over the fact that the scholar knew what she had already found out herself, if only just a few hours ago, and she wasn’t going to deny it, either. The mercenaries weren’t fools, and none of them seeing Nissa in more than three days and nights meant something was up. Captain Barthis, if he was still alive, was a fool to think otherwise.

  Shrugging, Sara said, “It’s true. She’s gone.”

  Ezekiel pursed his lips grimly. “I thought so. The Kades are strategic, and they didn’t trap us and fight us to death for nothing. They wanted an important member of their leadership back.”

  Sara raised an eyebrow. This wasn’t news to her—however, something else was.

  “Listen to the outside,” she said softly.

  Ezekiel’s eyes flickered between her and the tent entrance, but to his credit, he immediately did what was asked of him. She listened, as well.

  Soon they heard the thumping blast of another projectile hitting its target.

  Then silence except for screams.

  A minute later, another thump.

  “The Kades are attacking,” Ezekiel said with a nervous shrug. “We’ve known that for the past half hour.”

  “Yes, that’s true, but listen to how they’re attacking!” said Sara triumphantly.

  Ezekiel’s eyebrows rose. “You lost me there.”

  Matteas said, “Individual projectiles with light, targeted strikes.”

  Sara looked over at him in surprise—pleased. Maybe he wouldn’t be as useless as she’d thought.

  She nodded. “They aren’t doing the massive aerial bombardment from before. They could wipe us off the map with a single, well-coordinated strike. But they’re not. Instead, they’re flushing out individual sections.”

  “For what purpose?” Ezekiel asked.

  “I don’t know,” Sara said with a shrug. “Not as long as I’m stuck in here.”

  “But you have a guess,” Ezekiel said.

  She smiled. “I do.”

  The scholar blinked. “Okay, so will you be sharing it with us?”

  Sara turned hard eyes on the one person holding her back from being forthcoming.

  “I would,” she said slowly as she eyed Matteas. “But it doesn’t matter what I think. It only matters if our friend here can do his part.”

  He eyed her back and squeaked, “My part? What part?”

  Sara knelt on her haunches and said, “If I can get us through the Kade defensive lines to the Madrassa, can you get us through its walls and to where you hid those journals?”

  Matteas opened his mouth to speak, but she held up a hand. “The cold, hard truth, if you please.”

  He shut his mouth and chewed the inside of his cheek slowly as he thought.

  Finally, Matteas let out a deep breath and said, “I can, but I can’t tell you where it is. I’ll have to show you.”

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  Finally, Matteas sat up and looked her dead in the eyes, and for a moment he shed the quivering exterior and she was finally looking at a man with some spine.

  He said quietly, “Won’t. I don’t care if you kill me. I’m dead anyway. This way I have leverage. You need me.”

  “Ahh, I wondered when you’d get around to showing some of your true colors,” Sara said.

  “I won’t be a sacrifice,” Matteas said as the strength in his voice faded with his bluster. “I won’t be left adrift.”

  She laughed as another strike hit. This one no closer than the one before, but bigger. The force of the blast was so large that this time shrapnel came whizzing through their tent walls, cutting through the fabric like it was as thin as silk.

  They all ducked to avoid the
heated metal that passed inches from Sara’s cheek in a blur, but as she stood up again, hesitantly, and stared down at the sharpened, thin edge of a blown-off axle embedded in her table, she knew that they had lost all time to continue debating.

  The Kades were escalating, and it was now or never.

  “We’ll get you through in one piece,” Sara snapped. “You do the same for us. Do we have a deal?”

  Too late, she realized someone in their group was wounded, and in the immediate moments, they weren’t going anywhere. Matteas’s gaze was frozen solid on the shrapnel that was currently embedded in his arm. It looked a tad deeper than a flesh wound as far as Sara could tell from here and all the blood had drained from Matteas’s usually florid face.

  He muttered something. Sara didn’t move closer; she didn’t have time to baby him if they were going to move at all soon.

  “Speak up!” Ezekiel said. “Or we’ll throw you outside to the wolves, where either the Kade armament will tear you to pieces…”

  “…or your pursuers will wring your neck,” Sara finished.

  Matteas looked up and swallowed deeply. “Protect me and I’ll get you to those journals. I swear on my family’s graves.”

  Sara grunted as she pulled him up. “Your word will do.”

  Then she focused on the wound and ripped the cloth from his arm a bit in order to see the wound better.

  “Ezekiel?” Sara said. “You have any medical tonics on you?”

  “Nope,” the scholar said while whistling softly as he poked at the jagged metal in Matteas’s flesh. It was soot-covered and warped from a fire. She couldn’t tell what its original purpose had been, but it didn’t matter much anyway—they just had to get it out of him and get moving.

  As Matteas whined, “You do know what you’re doing, don’t you?” Sara rolled her eyes and asked Ezekiel casually, “Warehouse maneuver?”

  He nodded with a grin. “Am I still the flame?”

  “Not this time,” she said. “This time, you get to pull.”

  “Warehouse? Flame? Pull—pull what?” said Matteas in an increasingly frantic voice as he backed away. That was before Sara grabbed him firmly; then he began sobbing.

  “Stay still,” she snapped. “Ezekiel, do it before he tears a freaking artery. That’s all we need right about now.”

  Ezekiel, quick as a snake, didn’t hesitate. His hand flashed out, grabbed hold of the tip of the metal stuck in Matteas’ arm, and yanked back. A small yelp from the patient, and a louder scream as Sara didn’t waste any time calling up her mage fire and sealing the wound seconds later, and then he slumped over in a faint.

  As Ezekiel held the metal in his hand and Sara held the flame, they both looked down in disgust at the man who had passed out on her floor.

  They were at war—no one had time for sleep at the moment, least of all the person it seemed that everyone had reason to kill or capture.

  3

  Normally, Sara would have felt sorry for someone like Matteas.

  He was obviously going through a stressful situation and just as obviously not taking it very well, but she had no pity for him. First, because she needed him to be strong. Second, because she was damned tired herself. She wanted rest as much as the next person after the morning she had had, but apparently a nap wasn’t going to be in her schedule today, or anyone else’s, so she was just going to have to deal with the weariness, shove it aside, and keep going.

  And if she had to buck up, well, so did he. Kicking him, hard, she woke him up from his peaceful slumber.

  Seeing him jerk awake, she snapped at Ezekiel, “Watch him,” and then walked back to the front of the tent to peer outside for approaching threats. The single-projectile attacks had stopped for the moment, but the camp was awash with soldiers running this way and that, like a kicked anthill.

  Grimacing, she stood back and thought. The confusion could do them good.

  But if they ran into the wrong party who questioned whether she was heading to her appropriate position, if there was one, then she’d have to decide whether it was worth it to break cover and break some noses.

  There was also the small fact that Matteas was running from a group, and when he’d materialized inside her tent, he had looked deathly pale. She didn’t think he was making that threat up, either, which meant caution was warranted. Just as she could use the confusion surrounding them to slip out, someone could use it to slip in through a defensive perimeter with holes in it and right up to the person they were targeting for assassination—in this case, the man she needed most to stay alive.

  Sighing, Sara made an executive decision: for better or worse, she’d have to get used to doing so now that she was a lieutenant commander, and conferring with a group when you had to move was not a habit she wanted to get into.

  Looking back at Matteas and Ezekiel, now standing over him, she said, “Get up. We need to move out.”

  Matteas began to scramble up. To his credit, he did so quickly and without complaint. To his detriment, there was nothing spritely about his struggle to rise. He almost fell down twice, using his hand to catch himself just in time before he hit the floor, and then he propelled his girth up all the way.

  “This isn’t going to work,” she muttered. Neither of them heard her, and that was the problem.

  Normally, Sara would have been more tactful about the matter, but these weren’t normal circumstances. She was worried about both friends and foes spotting them as she led them away from the interior of the camp and on the trail of where she suspected Nissa was heading.

  There was only one other place in the empire that made sense if she hadn’t portaled straight to the Madrassa’s fortified institution that served as the Kade base of operations, at least partially, and Sara could only hope that Nissa hadn’t gone there. If she hadn’t, that just left the distant Kade encampment that Sara had targeted earlier with the help of a cohort of mages and a heck of a potential attack operation. Her operation had worked surprisingly well, but it wasn’t something she wanted to try again, not least because two of the mages who had helped her enact the mission had died because the exertions on their magic had been too great. Far too great. They’d lost good men a week ago, and she didn’t want to go through it again—particularly since she happened to be one of the strongest of the mages remaining that she could count on unequivocally.

  After clearing his throat, Ezekiel asked, “Where are we going?”

  “Never mind that,” Sara said. “We aren’t going anywhere if we can’t bring him with us.”

  Ezekiel looked quizzically over at Matteas, who was standing and straightening his clothes now. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means,” Sara said in frustration, “how are we supposed to get humpty-dumpty out of here without arousing suspicion?”

  The scholar’s eyes widened in shock, and then he said, “Sara!”

  “What?”

  “Remember…we were going to be nicer?” Ezekiel said.

  Sara looked up at him in disgust and then over at Matteas, who stood quivering in a corner like he was about to cry.

  She let out an exasperated sigh. “Right, well. Yes.”

  Ezekiel poked her. “Apologize.”

  “For what?” Sara said out of the side of her mouth.

  Ezekiel gave her a pointed look.

  Sara didn’t see why the big guy was so upset—she was certain she’d insulted his intelligence at least twice that morning and had threatened to kill him at least once, but this is what got him worked up.

  Sara said sharply, “I’m sorry, okay? I just…I just want to get to my father’s journals and get out of here. But unfortunately, more obstacles keep piling in our way with every moment that passes.”

  Matteas perked up. “Well, maybe I can help with that…a bit, maybe?”

  “How?” Ezekiel said.

  Matteas looked between the two of them anxiously. “Don’t get mad, okay?”

  “Oh, I’m way past mad,” Sara said as she t
ook a threatening step toward him.

  She was tired of his games. And that’s all it was: games. His shirking nature, his quivering shame, even his attempt to garner pity as he struggled to stand. She was beginning to see that this officer of the Imperial Armed Forces was more than he seemed.

  Much more.

  Fed up, Sara cracked her knuckles and said, “If you don’t start talking, I will break your face.”

  “Let’s not be so hasty,” Matteas said. “I prefer to stay alive as long as possible in all of these potential scenarios.”

  She gave a smile. “Who said anything about killing you?”

  “I can retrace the steps I took to get to the Madrassa,” Matteas said hurriedly. “I can get you there and get you inside.”

  “Why didn’t you offer to do that from the beginning?” Ezekiel said—for once as irate as Sara was. “I’ve been asking you for almost a half hour.”

  Matteas turned a sheepish grin on him. “Never offer something for nothing, my friend.”

  “Can I break his face now?” Sara said.

  “No,” said Ezekiel wearily.

  “No, no,” Matteas said. “Besides which, I, um, agree with you that we need to leave as soon as possible, and undetected, too.”

  “I’m sure you do, now,” Sara said dryly. “But that’s not looking like it’s going to be possible.”

  “Why not?” Matteas said with a squeak.

  Sara rolled her eyes and looked pointedly at the tent entrance. “That’s why.”

  Their gazes followed hers. The logistics officer was already twisting around to peer fearfully at the entrance.

  Sara continued, uninterrupted now that she had both of their undivided attention. “We may be cozy in here for the moment, but the entire encampment is under Kade attack…again. That’s not to mention the fact that the people who chased you to my doorstep could be on your heels still.”

  “I’m sure they took a break during the Kade assault,” Matteas pointed out, a bit of hope in his eyes.